#since I'm queer and I have queer friends

[yourlowkeyidiot3]

NEVER ask a religious teacher what's their opinion on queer people you're gonna regret it😶‍🌫️

[kittyoverlord]

I have to move at the end of the month, which I'm very stressed about in general, but I think I found a good apartment finally.

I'm both nervous and excited because I'm taking a big leap and (hopefully) moving to a place in walking distance to the shul that I've been going to. It's a modern orthadox congregation, and I'm not 100% comfortable yet, but every time I've attended Shabbat the people there have been extremely kind and welcoming. This past Shabbat was the day I told myself I'd decide if it was worth it to make the move. I ended up next to this older Russian man for kiddush, we chatted a bit about Chabad ("There's a Chabad house near you." "Yeah, I have a complicated relationship with Chabad." "You're not the only one."), and I said that I was thinking of moving out here. He ended up saying, "You bring important new perspectives to this community." That felt really special, and helped solidify for me that this congregation will appreciate the entirety of who I am, not just tolerate my presence.

They also have monthly yarn craft nights, which I'm excited to join. They have board games out for people to play on Shabbat. I'm hopeful that being close to this community will reinvigorate a lot of my practice. Being within walking distance, I may even be able to help them make their weekly minyan (I need to double check about that because I'm a bit concerned that they would not count me according to their halacha - not for gender reasons but because I converted conservative with a female rabbi).

This apartment complex has been making it very difficult to apply, but I finally submitted my stuff so hopefully this all comes together.

[anghraine]

My best friend and I moved in together with his closest friend from his MA program, and while I had met her before (the friend; my bff is a man), we hadn't spent much time together because I've never lived away from the West Coast (and only two years out of the PNW) and she's never lived outside of North Carolina and only briefly visited the PNW once, when she went to Portland last year.

It's been a delight to show her around the PNW and realize we need to explain things that are just sort of omnipresent in our lives. The bff and I were casually griping with each other about having to run an errand to Trader Joe's at an inconvenient hour, and were telling her, "it's okay, you can stay in the car and avoid the people if you want" and she was like "NO I MUST SEE IT, I'VE ONLY HEARD OF THEM" and nearly ascended to another plane when we showed her around the store.

The bff and I grew up in the same town in NW Washington (him for his first 18 years, me from 9 to 19) and he lived in Bellingham and Seattle for years before he went to NC for grad school (I went to the SF Bay Area for mine, a very different experience). Both of them are hardcore coffee aficionados, but he struggled with the different Coffee Ways of the South, so for the true PNW experience they want to tour various indie coffeeshops next.

Also, she adores Kaidan in Mass Effect and we were like, oh, is your passport up to date? We could take a trip sometime and show you your boyfriend's beloved English Bay. It's very beautiful :)

her: O_O

me: Actually, it's worth going to Vancouver BC for its own sake as well, it's truly spectacular. We used to go all the time as kids.

bff: And Victoria!

her: O_O

[la-principessa-nuova]

there are just certain sentences that are completely true and mean exactly what it seems like they mean but like give very incorrect implications, like:

one of my mom's best friends who visited all the time when i was growing up was her former lesbian roommate who she still deadnames to this day, but at least she feels bad about it when i call her out on it now, and i wonder if that had anything to do with why my mom likes melissa etheridge so much.

[cinematicnomad]

i just came out to a friend who i hadn't realized didn't already know i was bi and he was like "...yeah i'm not shocked lol" 😂

[growinguparo]

Hi! I just wanted to jump in and say thank you, because your blog has actually helped me a lot recently. I read your post from a while back (like a WHILE, 4ish years ago) about the aro/ace future and what that looks like as we get older. I’ve been coming to terms on and off in the past few years about how averse I am to relationships and dating, and with the fact that really don’t care if I’m single for the rest of my life. But you very nearly articulated the main concern: what happens when everyone else is wrapped up in their marriages and their families I am truly alone? I’m still not sure that the aromantic identity is accurate for me, but it feels pretty close and so thank you, again, for opening this world up to me and putting words to my feelings. :)

Aww thank you for telling me!! 💚

I still feel the way I did when I wrote that post, although it occupies less of my brainspace than it used to. However, I will take this opportunity to talk about the big thing in my social life that changed since 2020: I dove hard into my local community. Any local community will do I think, but the main one for me was my local trans community. I was also in a community music ensemble, I spent a couple years in a survivor support group, and I went to local queer events. I valued those communities highly enough that they were the main reason I was upset to be moving to a new city.

Community made a huge difference for me. I wasn’t really friends with any of them exactly (like I rarely hung out with any of them outside of whatever thing we had together), and community definitely doesn’t occupy the same niche of social requirements as friends or a partner. But it HELPS. It helps with social support, feeling connected to other people, having regular social interaction, and (crucially imo) meeting people who are older than you in a peer environment instead of one where they are of higher status than you.

I know so many trans people in their 30s, 40s, 50s, even 70s, from my local trans community - variously single, married, divorced, multiply divorced, dating, polyamorous, nonamorous, etc. It really broadened my view of what people older than me are actually doing in real life, not just what the twenty-somethings around me anticipate they will be doing when they are that age. People who are like me too, queer transgender people who will never fit the conventional narrative. It enriched my life in a way I wasn’t expecting.

I still don’t know what an aroace future looks like and it’s still scary but at least now I know that mine will include local communities and that I can get a fair amount of the social fulfillment I’m seeking from them.

[lavend3r-stardust]

The innate need to be loved as hard is something that gnaws at my heart and rattles between my ribs like a fucking cage. Something really warms my soul seeing effort being reciprocated. I'm just a sappy whore for my energy being returned and people extended their heart to me as I've given them mine 💙

[averlym]

which is gayer? SIX or Adamandi (real)

adamandi

[dragoninahumancostume]

My favorite part of being alive is that I've never felt welcome in any space except for that one year when I thought I was a non-binary bisexual asexual girl when I was 13 :)

[poetic-crimelord]

I freaking love the experience of wanting a romantic relationship but knowing I won't want it If someone declares to me.

Like no, baby, I want a love story but only on my head. Thank you very much

[donovankinard]

maybe it's time for me to move on.............

[endlessly-light]

Been getting such good grades in social interractions lately i am soso very happy

[artemistorm]

Having a hard time with the whole queerphobe situation. Could use all the hugs I can get.

[outer-edges]

bruh apparently my roommate fell down the terf pipeline this summer and proudly told me she is a terf tonight. uh. babe what the fuck do you want me to do with that.

[rapha-reads]

[quarklynx]

anypony remember how to code switch to not sound queer and mentally ill?